Opinion: High-Frequency Traders Help the Little Guy

Assistant editorial page editor James Freeman on the benefits of high-frequency trading. Photo credit: Andrew St. Clair for The Wall Street Journal.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... I ... the year ... the market's rink ... stock market most iconic market ... in the boom in global capitalism the red ... by whom ... by a combination of the stock exchanges ... the Wall Street banks and high frequency traders who are the victims ... everybody doesn't invest stock market ... welcome back to Opinion Journal I'm Mary Kissel ... that was awesome like a little less arguing that the stock market is range ... perhaps it's in its attempts to flaunt his new pot ... on high frequency trading ... I've got assistant editorial page editor James Freeman here to talk about ... whether or not this is as high frequency trading ... really is the new bogeyman on Wall St James's thinking really rates ... well ... if this rate it's been read by the government ... of the answer the question is yes he's fourteen above was what really bothered me about that sixty minutes segment was ... that describe this conspiracy of all these private actors in the market ... and it didn't ... mention who created this system so what ... I mean what is high frequency TROW up in a single user of orders being done by computers I humans are out of the loop and I and they're doing now ... or descending order sometimes canceling them setting new ones ... in milliseconds and not ... in seeking an advantage of from ... computing power and the proximity to the ... computer servers of an exchange to to make it work or trade up a sell list argues that the game is rigged you say it's read by the government how exactly ... will the government has made this is an incredibly complicated he is the way back when that pretty much show all the stock trading going on the floor the Newark Stock Exchange said that its own problems very expensive ... government sought the broke break the top of made stock trading very cheap this is the ... individual investors really never been better off in terms of low prices to trade very narrow spreads ... but then the government but kept going and said we need to ... have traded for all these thousands of places in the league to talk to each other and the need to seek out the best bid and so ... are the views of the sixty minutes piece for for everyone who was watching it the it show does this mean that ... pathway or around New York and New Jersey in the trade is bouncing everywhere and very complicated than that creates problems for us or allegedly it creates ... a risk that the investor will get ripped off the reason these trades bounce all over the place and is really troubling is that the government said it must be that way chances are inherently bad about trades that ... we might not seen for example in these dark pools which is another ... had a bad word these days on Wall Street so what what that means of the dark pool is another term I like high frequency trading in a not so well understood that sounds terrible what it what it basically means it is a large institutions who were actually in the Michael Lewis still the victims ... are looking for ways to trade without alerting the whole market that they wanna get into or out of the big possession and ... so I it's another ... blast of ... a phenomenon by the FCC has created this whole business and it's just not understand how the market works and how government interferes ... isn't on YouTube are the only guy ... who was making this area ... the only person to want to reassure people that are at the end of the the the the you know what what's very clear though is that it's a ... certainly it's it's always a fun media story to bash Wall Street then ... and I think you're especially given the era we've been through a ... bailouts and so forth the idea that the ... Wall Street is ripping us off as a heads ... up populist appeal and on ... and so I think that's that's part of the fascination Aaron as you mentioned of Mr Lewis as a book out but the ... but I think in this case he wouldn't be objectively ... the investor is ... really much better often than in previous eras and just inked a one point it might take my word for every stop ... on our ... page today from Cliff Asness of hedge fund guy who again in the Michael Lewis tail is both be one of the victims these institutions yes he's benefited he says we're we're better off ... I still believe the hype about high frequency trading is so editoral page and James St ... thanks very much ...